


Idea of Him

by Setkia



Series: it's okay to not be okay [2]
Category: Deadpool - All Media Types, Spider-Man - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Humour, Implied/Referenced Suicide attempt, Insecure Peter, M/M, Pre-Relationship, mental health
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-31
Updated: 2018-05-31
Packaged: 2019-05-16 15:22:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,845
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14813918
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Setkia/pseuds/Setkia
Summary: “You crashed into the side of a building?”“Yeah.”“In your civilian clothes without a spec of blood on you?”“… Yes?”Takes place immediately after Wade leaves inHappy.





	Idea of Him

**Author's Note:**

> So unlike the others, the lyrics at the beginning are kind of cropped, it jumps from the pre-chorus right to the chorus. Don't know anything, obviously. Exam season happens and to distract myself I end up writing more fics between study sessions?

****_You fear all hate and being alone_  
_but hate it when someone tells you that you are loved_  
_An insecure sadness locked behind a smile_  
_Potential and beauty stuck under it all_  
_You like the idea of her_  
_But rip away the skin  
__—_ Whitney Woerz, _[Idea of Her](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MAYMFwjoWy8)_  

Peter watches as Wade drops to the ground from what must be the thirteenth story (?), when Tony makes his way into the room and the young hero knows the jig is up.

He shouldn’t have opted to watch as Deadpool made his way down. He should have cleaned the blood off the table, closed the window, hidden the medical tape and gone into the _right fucking lab_ because none of his equipment is here anyway, but the paper he gave the merc weighs on his conscience heavily and he finds himself unable to move.

“I heard you talking to someone.”

“Nope. Just myself,” says Peter. Seems like he’s going to try and lie his way through this. He doesn’t know why he bothers, he’s shit at lying, but he’s already devoted himself to this bullshit ruse so he may as well continue. “Teenagers tend to do that.”

“You’re nineteen.”

“I’m forever young.”

Tony raises a skeptical eyebrow. Peter can’t blame him.

“And I suppose the blood is yours too?”

“Yup.” He pops the P way too much. “Got uh … building ran into me.”

“You crashed into the side of a building?”

“Yeah.”

“In your civilian clothes without a spec of blood on you?”

“… Yes?”

The man behind the Arc Reactor does not seem impressed. Probably because the multi-billionaire has already saved his own life by ripping a hole in his chest to save himself from shrapnel poisoning in the middle of fucking who knows where while being threatened by a terrorist organization to design weapons for them, and Peter is just a small, gawky, not to mention awkward nerd who has been given permission to wander around his lab and feel important, and occasionally helps old ladies’ cross the street while wearing spandex.

“He was here, wasn’t he?”

“Playing the pronoun game, huh? What if they don’t conform to the gender binary norm?”

“Peter.”

The brunet sighs. “Yes.”

“I thought I told you—”

“He was hurt! I was coming in for my shift when he got hit by this car and he kind of … flew a few streets back with the impact, and I went to make sure he was okay, but he was bleeding a lot and I thought he was dead, so I just …. It’s a hero’s job to help people, right?”

Tony pinches the bridge of his nose in that way that says he’s getting too old for this shit. “You know what he is, don’t you?”

“A mercenary.”

“That means he _kills people_.”

“I know,” the brunet says. “He does it for a living. Our moral code doesn’t allow for that. But so what? It’s a dirty job, and someone has to do it, right?”

Tony shakes his head. “You’re too young, you don’t understand—”

“Too young?” Peter echoes. He can point out that he’s lost way more than anyone should have to in the span of four years. He could mention that every time he goes to see Aunt May, he’s terrified someone will follow him, find out his identity and kill her. He can talk about his insomnia, and his nightmares and the bottle of pills he’s bought, but has never touched. He interject Tony’s “too young” argument with any of those things, but he bites it back and swallows a large lump in his throat. “Maybe.”

“He’s bad news. And it’s not because he kills people.”

Peter isn’t convinced.

“I mean, that’s part of it, but it’s not the whole thing. He’s sick, Peter. Can’t you tell?”

“I don’t …” Peter frowns. “What do you mean?”

“He’s not normal,” Tony spits out. “And I’m not talking like frozen over in ice for over half a century. He hears voices, and he kills for fun, in the most creative ways because he doesn’t feel remorse. He doesn’t know what _guilt_ is. Wade Wilson will kill anyone for the right price. He has no moral compass, he doesn’t value human life. If you spook him, he’ll put a gun to your head, and won’t think twice about pulling the trigger.”

“He’s unpredictable.”

“Yes.”

“And what, you’re scared of him because of that?” Peter rolls his eyes. “That’s stupid.”

He wonders how late Pepper has kept him up, going through papers and worksheets. Peter doubts that Tony has the same amount of time to … _de-stress_ as he had before, so he’s pretty pent up. He hasn’t been sleeping, which, neither has Peter, but he’s still ready to go for this argument, even if he doesn’t want to.

Tony looks around the room, taking in the blood, the open window, the medical tape, and Peter. It’s like a shitty game of Clue, superhero edition.

“How tight did you do the stitches?”

Peter lets out a sigh of relief. They’re not going to further this argument anymore for today. “Tight as I could. It’s kind of hard to tell what part was hurt, and what part was just … always that way? I did my best.”

Tony nods slowly and runs his fingers through his hair. Peter’s pretty sure he’s starting to see speckles of grey, but he won’t mention it. He knows that’ll probably just spell trouble. “Alright. Disinfect the table, okay?” He gestures with a lazy hand, then turns on his heel, and leaves.

This feels wrong. Like Tony is trying to guilt-trip him into feeling bad about _helping someone._

It’s what heroes do, it’s part of their job. Heroes don’t discriminate, do they? A life is a life, and a life saved is always better than a life lost. It took him a while, but he eventually learnt that you can’t balance lives. Every life you save does not make up for one lost, because some lives mean more than others, but no life is worth nothing.

If this is because he wasn’t wearing his suit, then that’s just stupid. Maybe he wasn’t dressed up like Spider-Man, doesn’t mean he doesn’t have Spider-Man’s powers. He and Peter are the same person.

Except they’re not.

He feels better with the suit, feels more confident, able to do what he wants because no one knows him when he’s wearing it. No one can see his face, tell when he’s embarrassed, or unsure. Everyone trusts people in suits, for some reason.

Without it, his bravado is gone. The insecurities seep in and are visible all over his face. The thrill, the adrenaline of the fight is gone, and he’s left bare, and unsure. He has Spider-Man’s _powers_ , but he’s not Spider-Man, because Spider-Man _doesn’t exist_. He’s a projection of everything Peter wishes he could be; self-assured, confident, brave, fearless.

He’s not that. And it sucks because he’s never more aware of it than when Tony is with him. Because Tony doesn’t see the superhero that Peter has been trying so hard to be for the past four years. Tony sees a boy. He sees a boy who needs to be protected, who gets ahead of himself and gets cocky sometimes when he shouldn’t be. Someone who doesn’t sleep as often as he should, who worries through classes and is terrified of anyone finding out his secret. Tony sees a boy who has no idea what to do with himself half the time and is only half-sure the rest of the time.

Tony sees _him_ , and Peter hates himself.

The thing about Wade Wilson is he knows Spider-Man, but he doesn’t know shit about _Peter_. And while Peter lays awake at night, staring at the ceiling wondering why the _fuck_ he likes a man who carries around katanas like they’re the newest fashion trend, and shoots people’s heads off like he’s a video game character with infinite lives, but more importantly, he wonders why Deadpool would like _him_.

And the answer is, Deadpool _doesn’t_. Not the real him, anyway.

Maybe it’s cruel, but he wants to test him. See if Deadpool would be interested in _Peter_ , all dorky glasses, two-left-feet, bumbling idiot with a biochem major and a shitty apartment full of microwaveable dinners and a tendency to cry during 1980 rom-coms.

When you take away Spider-Man’s mask, and reveal the man beneath you find Peter Parker, a very scared boy who has no idea where the fuck he’s going.

He can’t stand letting Wade in, only for Wade to be disappointed with what he finds.

So this is a test. Give him his number, see if he calls.

He knows better than to hope, but just maybe, if Wade can settle for someone like Peter Parker, then maybe there’s hope for them yet.

* * *

There’s a dead body on the ground, and, to no one’s surprise, Deadpool is standing over it.

Peter is under no illusions of who Wade is. He kills people, and he thinks it’s fun. Deadpool tells him about the games he plays when he goes out on jobs. Sometimes he likes to see if he can shoot them to the beat of a song, or how many idiots can he get to line up in a single row? He’s a killer. It’s a fact.

Peter’s stopped running away from blood a long time ago.

So he sighs and asks what the fuck Wade’s been doing, because _really_?

Wade says something about a busted phone, and the love of his life and then Peter’s stomach sinks.

He can barely make out his messy, panicked scrawl on the bloodied piece of paper.

He wonders if it would be too eager to ask if Deadpool plans on calling him. He swallows down the words and focuses instead on torn stitches at Wade’s side. He knew he should’ve done them up tighter, but he had no idea when the mutant was going to come-to and he didn’t want to risk a sword to the throat.

Deadpool tags along and maybe Peter fusses a lot over the fact that the man _broke his fucking legs_ jumping out a window, and maybe he’s super touchy today, but to be fair, he _did_ find him dead on the ground just a few hours earlier.

He knows not to expect a text from Wade, his phone is busted and Peter’s number has been turned into a bloodstain that’s probably in the trash somewhere. Maybe he’ll ask for it again.

He’s going to have to ask. Peter nearly threw up giving it to him today.

He probably won’t. He wonders if Deadpool was joking about the whole “love of his life” thing. Probably. It’s Deadpool. You never know what to expect with him. He tries to calm himself, remind himself rationally that this makes sense.

Wade Wilson wouldn’t want some goody-two-shoes dork like Peter Parker.

He _knows_ that.

He realizes, to his horror, while staring at the ceiling that while he knew, he had still hoped.

Seems he won’t be sleeping tonight either.

 


End file.
